Signs such as fidgeting and blinking do not actually show when someone is
lying, according to an academic who has been paid £112,000 to spot the
tell-tale signs for fraud companies.

Dr Sharon Leal, from the University of Portsmouth, has been given the grant to fund a two-year study into uncovering suspect claims.

The psychology academic, who has written several books on deception, says she will carry out laboratory controlled experiments to work out the pointers to dishonesty.

She says fraud investigators will no longer have to rely on “gut feeling” to know when a claim is false.

Dr Leal received her grant from a large fraud investigation company and will report back in 2012.

She said: “Contrary to popular belief, motivated liars do not fidget, avert their gaze or blink nervously.

“They are usually calm and have planned their lies down to the last detail.

“There is a real need to use evidence-based methods that are scientifically proven to work to stop wasting insurance companies' time and money and to stop innocent people being treated as suspects while the guilty get away.”

Dr Leal said electronic techniques such as recording a phone call and then running the conversation through a voice stress analysis machine often do not work.

“Even the majority of experts overestimate their ability to spot a lie,” she said.

“They might as well toss a coin in the air - their record of finding the cheats would be the same at about 50:50.”

Dr Leal says when someone prepares to lie, they think about their story beforehand and therefore load a large amount of information onto their brain.

She hopes to look at the way this information overload affects behaviour.

The number of false claims has risen since the recession, she added: “There is a saying, ‘needs must when the devil rides’.

“This basically means when times are tough, people are more likely to break the rules. That is certainly true in the case of insurance fraud.”